The day to deliver?

With two races scheduled for today at the Audi Valencia Cup and just one final contest tomorrow to decide who will win the first ever 52 Super Series title, this will be a thrilling day on the waters off Valencia’s La Malvarossa beach. There is nothing at all separating Quantum Racing from Audi Azzurra Sailing Team in terms of points.

The first two days has seen the breeze averaging more that 12kts and Guillermo Parada’s team from the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda have been very quick in the slightly uprange breezes. Quantum Racing have not made it easy for themselves but this is their time to perform.

The difference today is that the forecast suggests lighter winds, from the NE to E which is more parallel to the beach. But the forecasts have been quite inaccurate these last days with more wind than expected. In particular the cloudy conditions have been moving the wind direction around a little at times. So it is looking like it will be a bit harder to decipher, very much a day for looking out the boat focusing on what is happening and about to happen, rather than guessing trends from the forecast.

The tasks facing the two different teams are different. For Audi Azzurra Sailing Team it is the old adage of sticking to their processes, sailing smooth and just holding on to the good feeling on board, knowing how hard they have worked this season. They have tasted disappointment before in the final regattas, losing out on the title. But they are the team which has been improving.

Quantum Racing have been here before. Last year it was Bríbon which suddenly made the late season charge. But when the chips were down, the Quantum Racing crew did what they had to and won the 2011 season championship. Today they need to make sure they halt Audi Azzurra Sailing Team’s momentum, but also to sail clean and smart.

We will probably see about 10kts of breeze, expecting a little right shift through the day and then we have these funny clouds and that can make it a bit interesting. I am really enjoying it, it’s a shame we cant do three or four races a day as it is so good.

We are quite happy. We have had our good moments but some bad ones too with the jib tack breaking. But it will be interesting to see what we can make out of it.

Let the games begin……

The mood is good. We just have to go out and sail our race. It has been a little intriguing thinking that it is just us and them. And they have played that game better than we did, just the match racing. I think our guys, and for sure I did, had expectations that we would do a better job than this. The up range breeze that we have had has taken away a little bit of our advantage. They have changed their philosophy and started to exploit what has always allegedly been a performance advantage of theirs which was the uprange conditions. We did a great job earlier in the season of exploiting our light airs advantage and nullifying their uprange advantage.

I think today will be lighter and tricky. I think we will go well. I think that those guys (Azzurra) we have been very fortunate to beat in the last couple of years, but they came ready and so are we. But if they win this….they beat the best that we have, and that is our obligation.Ed Reynolds (USA), project manager and director Quantum Racing (USA)

According to the forecasts the wind should be light today but the forecasts yesterday were not so accurate and there was much more breeze. I think here with the cloudiness around that makes the forecast a little more tricky. It is better to just keep our eyes open and see what is happening. We are sailing good and we just need to keep it the same and see what happens. We keep smooth and steady. GJ is the boss, the he keeps us focused, he keeps the mood even and we do that.Bruno Zirilli (ITA) navigator Audi Azzurra Sailing Team (ITA)

We will probably see about 10kts of breeze, expecting a little right shift through the day and then we have these funny clouds and that can make it a bit interesting. I am really enjoying it, it’s a shame we cant do three or four races a day as it is so good.

We are quite happy. We have had our good moments but some bad ones too with the jib tack breaking. But it will be interesting to see what we can make out of it.Boris Herrmann (GER) navigator Audi Sailing Team powered by ALL4ONE